Frederic Lewis Tuffley (23 October 1855 – 1 April 1935), better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer. In a career spanning five decades, he starred in numerous comedies and in a few musical comedy hits, but he is probably best remembered today as the understudy to George Grossmith in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas of the 1880s who left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company just in time to give Henry Lytton his big break.
Lewis began performing in comic musical sketches in Brighton in the 1870s. He made his London performing debut in 1880 and joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1882, where he understudied Grossmith until 1887. Lewis then performed in a number of very successful musical comedies and other comedies for the next decade but devoted himself to the non-musical comedy stage, performing mostly in contemporary comedies by Arthur Wing Pinero, George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Barrie and R. C. Carton until 1925.
Biography
Lewis was born in Northampton and raised in Brighton.
Early career and D'Oyly Carte years
Lewis made his first public appearance in comic musical sketches in local concert halls in Brighton in the late 1870s. He appeared at St. James's Hall in Brighton in October 1879 with Arthur Law and his wife Fanny Holland. By 1880, Lewis had begun presenting comic musical sketches at the Royal Polytechnic Institution and St. George's Hall, where he sometimes took the place of the comedian Corney Grain. In 1881, he made his London stage debut in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at the Haymarket Theatre as Pilate Pump in Blue and Buff. In 1882, he joined the touring Alice Barth Opera Company, playing a number of roles with them.
Lewis joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in December 1882 as the understudy to George Grossmith in the principal comedian roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Grossmith was rarely ill or absent from the stage, however, and Lewis had very few chances to play the roles. His only substantial opportunity to play one of the principal comedian roles came when he played Ko-Ko in The Mikado during August and September 1886.
Lewis was, however, given several roles in the short curtain raisers that often were performed together with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In these he played Mr. Wranglesbury in Mock Turtles from December 1882 to March 1883, Napoleon Fitz-Stubbs in A Private Wire from March 1883 to January 1884, receiving warm notices, the Counsel to the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury from October 1884 to March 1885 and Piscator in The Carp from February 1886 to January 1887. The Carp enjoyed an unusually long run for a curtain raiser. So long, according to Lewis's colleague Rutland Barrington, that at the end of the piece one night, when Lewis, who played the angler, shouted out his joyful "I've caught it!" a voice from the gallery responded, "About time, too!" In June 1885, Lewis played together with Barrington in an afternoon "musical dialogue," Mad to Act, with words by Barrington and music by Wilfred Bendall, at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge.
Frustrated by his position as understudy to an actor who had hardly ever taken ill in four years, Lewis resigned from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in January 1887. On 29 January 1887, one week after the opening of the new opera, Ruddigore, Grossmith did fall ill, and Henry Lytton, a young actor who was in the right place at the right time, took Grossmith's role of Robin Oakapple until 18 February. Lytton went on to perform with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company until 1934, including 25 years as the company's principal comedian.
Musicals and first comedies
Lewis was soon performing in the West End of London at the Royalty Theatre in April 1887 in Ivy, and in May in a comedy entitled A Tragedy. In June 1887, Lewis performed in a comedietta by Andrew Longmuir called Cleverly Managed. In July 1888, he starred in another comedietta, entitled Caught Out, by Florence Bright at St George's Hall In September of that year, he helped open the relocated New Court Theatre with a play by Sydney Grundy called Mamma, starring Mrs. John Wood and also featuring Arthur Cecil. In January 1889, he starred in The Begum's Diamonds by J. P. Hurst at the Avenue Theatre. In July of that year, he was back at the Court Theatre starring with Mrs. John Wood, Cecil and Weedon Grossmith in Aunt Jack, a farce by Ralph Lumley. The next year, he had his first big musical comedy success as the foppish Duke of Fayensburg in the successful operetta La Cigale, composed by Edmond Audran, at the Lyric Theatre. This ran from October 1890 to December 1891. The Duke was one of his finest roles, and the success of the piece owed much to his performance.